


"Three days."

by snazzinox



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Torture, don't read this if you're sensitive to people being burnt, thats basically it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 04:46:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10802034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snazzinox/pseuds/snazzinox
Summary: As long as he was in pain, he was living, and as long as he was living, he could leave.What happened while Luciel was in the boiler room for three days? More importantly, how the hell did he get out?





	"Three days."

**Author's Note:**

> “A long time ago, I got this mission. I was supposed to infiltrate the facility while the enemies were outside and retrieve information. And, you know me… swift 707. Success at once!... Or it’s what I thought, but when I sent out all the other agents and was about to leave, the enemies came back. So I hid in the boiler room inside the building. I hid there and looked for the perfect moment to leave. But they just wouldn’t leave. Do you know how many days that took? Three days. For three days I hid in there… It was so hot and I was so thirsty I thought I was going to die… Then I realised that I don’t know what I’d leave behind in this world if I die, the meaning of all that. All the hacking work I did, the duties as an agent… They’re all anonymous. No one really knows that it’s me who did it. I thought that when I die… I’d just disappear from this world without any trace.” [“That’s sad.”] “That might sound sad to you I suppose. It just feels empty to me. I had all those hackers chase me and attack me, but they were never really aware who I am. But… it’s strange. Now that I am so aware of your presence, I constantly think about who I am. Why is that? I’m just hollow…”

**Hot.** Luciel had only been in the boiler room for a few hours and he already felt like he was melting. He’d already stripped down to his boxers, having given up on wiping away his sweat. As long as he could feel it rolling down his back, he had physical proof that he was alive. His glasses kept sliding down his nose, and he slid them up onto the top of his head, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye, intently listening.

Footsteps. All he’d heard was footsteps pacing back and forth. There was a vent in the room, and cool air was blowing out from it, but the overbearing heat of the boiler damn near negated any effect it had, even with his head resting against the small grate. Sweat kept rolling down his neck and he nodded slowly, counting each drop in his head.

Luciel kept counting, not knowing how long he had been counting various things in the room. He went from counting drops of sweat to cracks on the floor to footsteps passing by outside the door. All sense of time had escaped him; his phone had succumbed to the heat within half an hour, long before he realised that his quick hideout might last longer than expected.

He was shivering when his eyes opened, awoken by a change that he couldn’t identify. Luciel shifted to try and press himself closer to the grate, scrunching his eyes tight for a moment as he realised the airflow had stopped. He opened his eyes, turning towards the vent, examining the screws holding the grate into the wall. He removed his glasses, almost dropping them as they slid through his slippery fingers, pressing the end of the earpiece into the groove in a screw, slowly turning it. It could have taken hours or twenty minutes, but the screw fell out, tinkling across the floor. He froze, but the footsteps didn’t stop.

Luciel began working at the screw below it, swearing as he realised it was stripped, sliding his fingers behind the metal, wincing as it dug into his fingers while he pulled, letting go when he saw the blood drip out of his fingers. He didn’t realise his hands were shaking until he pressed the bloody fingers to his lips, even his own blood feeling like a relief on his cracked skin. His tongue snaked out, and he closed his eyes as his tongue was finally wet again. The thin layer of blood dried on his tongue, making it feel tighter and drier than before, and he laid down on the floor.

He swallowed, the dry feeling making him want to gag, pressing his red fingers into the hot concrete. The feeling of the pavement dragging against the wound hurt, but if Luciel knew anything, pain proved you were alive. His previous judgement, the sweat rolling down his overheated body, had ceased as he was using his glasses as a makeshift screwdriver, so all he had left was the best judgement.

Where were his glasses? Luciel slapped his uninjured hand behind his back, still dragging his fingers against the floor. He had never been the best of artists, but if this were to be his last creation, at least it’d show he left a mark on something. Some kind of identification when his rotted body began to smell enough to be found.

His fingers grasped at the frame of his glasses, and he smushed them against his face, his nose aching as his palm pressed against against his nose. He pressed harder for a moment before letting his arm fall against the floor, closing his eyes again. He ran his tongue over his lips, the muscle so dry that he couldn’t even taste the dried blood on his mouth.

Luciel was still dragging his hand against the ground, and he peeled his eyes open again, staring at the barely readable words.

**_I EXISTED 707_ **

At least now, when someone found him they’d know he did something, that he was a fucking human being that at least breathed once. This was the only record of himself he was ever allowed to leave. Saeyoung was dead, Luciel was dying, but 707 would remain, at least until the blood was scrubbed away and all of his programs were destroyed.

He let his eyes shut again. He could feel his brain leaking out of his ears, some broken melody repeating itself over and over in his head, the only words he could remember floating around in what was left of his mind that he could grasp.

Once more, Luciel’s eyes opened at an absence of sound. The footsteps had finally stopped. He slowly lifted his head, looking at his pile of clothes across the room, laying his head back down as he realised how much effort it would take to even stand, let alone get dressed and escape.

The door flew open, and he stared at the shiny boots, unable to comprehend the shouts back into the hallway. A hand grabbed him by the hair, and he stared up into an unfamiliar face.

“Who the fuck are you?” The man continued barking questions about who he was and how he got there, but Luciel could barely focus on him, vision swimming as the man’s wrinkled brow faded in and out of his sight.

He was thrown back onto the ground, and Luciel closed his eyes again, barely feeling how his bare skin scraped against the concrete flooring. A cacophony of voices saying “Hacker” and “707” went through one of his ears and out the other, and he didn’t resist as he was grabbed again, manhandled into a standing position.

A slap across the face focused him for a brief moment, and he registered three men in the room with him, one holding him upright, another rummaging through his clothes before dropping them in a heap. The third man was holding an ice cube in his hands. He rubbed it across Luciel’s lips, and he winced at the cold. It was pushed between his lips, but bounced off his teeth, clattering across the floor. The man cracked the ice tray again, holding another. The man who had been looking through Luciel’s clothes moved to Luciel’s side, forcing his locked jaw open, shutting it again as the ice man jammed another cube in. Luciel shuddered at the cold, whimpering as it stuck to his dry tongue for a moment before beginning to melt with the temperature of his body.

He was force fed perhaps half of the ice tray when he began retching, only water coming up. There was a corner of expulsions near where he had been laying, the heat making the smell disastrous, hence the bandanas the men had wrapped tightly around their lower faces. The man holding him threw him backwards as Luciel began throwing up.

“Dumbass, he’ll choke on it!” One of the other men exclaimed, kneeling to turn Luciel onto his side so that he wasn’t drowning in his own vomit water. “Hey, kid.”

Luciel peeled his eyes open, blowing air out of his nose as hard as he could to try and clear it out. The man who had given him ice was next to him, holding up another cube. “Kid, what’s your name? Who do you work for?”

Luciel grunted, trying and failing to move his arms enough to push himself upright. “I’m nobody important. No one will care if you kill me. Dead already.”

The ice man nodded, and Luciel was hoisted up by his armpits, and he began shaking as he was dragged closer to the boiler. His arm was lifted, and he screamed as his hand was pressed to a pipe on the wall. He cradled it to his chest as much as he could, just barely rocking.

“You wanna try again, buddy? Who told you to go against us?”

Luciel stayed silent, trying to keep his arm tucked against his chest. It was snatched away from him, and he screamed again as the back of his shoulder and his tricep were pushed against the burner itself.

“One more chance. Who is your boss, 707?”

“Kill me first, fucker.”

Luciel would have spat at the man if he had enough fluid in his body, and he was yanked up onto his feet again, his weight resting in his arms. He bit his tongue hard enough for it to bleed at the feeling of his burnt arm being strained.

“Shame. We could have been friends, y’know.” The man turned, leaving the room, and Seven screamed again as his back was slammed against the boiler.

The pain reminded him he was alive, and he threw his weight forward, falling from the grip of the men who weren’t holding him very tightly, as they had been counting on his weak state. He stumbled towards his clothes, his body screaming with each movement. He was grabbed before he had taken three steps, and he lunged forward again, his voice dying in his throat as his back was pressed to the boiler once more. His dried blood on the floor caught his eye as he silently screamed.

_I existed._

Luciel swung one arm away from the smaller man to his left, smashing it into his glasses, breaking the lens. A piece of glass jammed into his eyebrow, but when he took his hand away, a large, jagged shard was stuck in his palm. He closed his fist around it, holding it between his fingers and swinging his arm again, catching the man in the neck. His blood spurted across the almost nude teenager, and the other man was shocked enough at the sound of his companion hitting the ground that he loosened his grip on Luciel’s arm.

Luciel took the opportunity and leaned into the muscular man, jamming that same piece of glass into the man’s jugular, falling to the floor with him, feeling along his waist for a gun, taking it as soon as he felt it. Luciel began crawling towards his clothes, each motion an agony that he fought to keep at the forefront of his mind.

As long as he was in pain, he was living, and as long as he was living, he could leave. The last thing he wanted was to become numb.

Luciel shakily dressed his lower half, holding his shirt and hoodie over his arm, tightly clutching the gun under them, focusing on not dropping it as he used the wall to stand, slowly stumbling over to the door, trying to recall his mental map of the building. His memory, usually impeccable, was blurring the more he tried to focus. Or maybe that was just his vision with all of the blood running into his better eye.

Four times a person crossed his path, and four times he pulled the trigger. His life or theirs. And he’d be damned if he didn’t at least get to breathe outside one more time.

“Hey!” It was the ice man. Luciel slowly lurched to a stop, turning back, pulling the trigger again and hobbling his way back towards the door at the end of the hall.

Once he was outside the building, he fell to his knees again, dropping the gun to wrap his fingers around his silver cross, bringing it to his lips, eyes burning as if he were going to cry as a cold breeze ransacked his back.

Luciel slowly crawled to the road, continuing down the sidewalk as long as he could go before sitting down on the curb. He set his clothes down beside him, laying down so that his matted hair was on the lump, holding down the power button on his phone. The screen flicked on for just a moment before dying again, and he shoved it into his hoodie’s pocket, closing his eyes. What he’d give for payphones to still be around.

“H-hey. Do you need help?”

Luciel’s eyes opened to see a girl of perhaps eighteen at most standing in front of him, barely visible with the lack of a streetlight and his broken glasses. “Do you have water?”

She immediately dropped to her knees, pulling off a backpack and digging out a full bottle from her bag, handing it to him. She allowed him to use her phone to call Vanderwood, leaving another bottle of water with him before she had to run off, already late for dinner before she had stopped to help him.

It took months for his back to heal, and Vanderwood had chewed him out before seeing the full damage, the skin on his back and arm almost entirely peeled off. The weeks it took for him to be able to use his right hand again almost drove him insane, but the days it took for his ruined voice to return almost drove Vanderwood up the wall. Unable to write or talk, and unable to sit at a computer with his back, it was a guessing game for them to even vaguely try and understand what had happened.

By the time he could relate what had happened, they were over it and the report had been filed, so he kept it to himself, where it belonged. After all, no one needed to know that he was so weak that he had almost succumbed in less than three days. No one needed to know his dying message. Most importantly, no one needed to know his fear of being ultimately insignificant in life.

He was determined to take that to the grave, even if he couldn’t hide the extensive scars across his back and arm.

He was 707, and living lies was his specialty.


End file.
